Last of the summer festivals
mainLongborough, the Wagner-led festival in the heart of the English’s green and plesant, has called off its 2020 summer. Buxton, in Derbyshire, followed suit, along woth Neville Holt Opera and Brighton.
So, too, have Spoleto and Ojai in the USA.
In Germany, the Ruhr triennale is off.
Edinburgh, Bayreuth, the BBC Proms, Salzburg and Tanglewood, all of which start in late-July or August, are weighing their options day by day. Glyndebourne has the second half of its season still to decide on. Salzburg says it can wait til the end of May before making a decision.
Its president Helga Rabl-Stadler says: ‘You have a strategy, you don’t talk about it.’
Aix-en-Provence, scheduled to open on June 30, is ‘continuing to work hard to ensure that the 2020 edition runs smoothly, and is doing everything possible to carry on with Festival preparations in the best conditions possible.’
Edinburgh Festival starts in August.
Yes, that’s what it says.
The strategy could be to boost herd immunity in summer by only selling tickets to healthy people <65 years with the aim of shielding off the old high-risk part of the population in winter 2020/2021.
According to their website, Snape Maltings also still “keep decisions about the Aldeburgh Festival in June under review”.
Tanglewood begins in early July
There is a good chance that western Europe will reopen about the end of June. We just have to wait and see, but the deaths in Italy look like they have stopped rising.